Change Release

The change is authorized by the change management team and implemented to the production environment with exhaustive planning. The change technicians handle the following steps for smooth implementation:

• Ensure that the target environment is ready to admit the commissioned changes.
• Analyze the CIs involved and mitigate any potential risk of disruption.
• If the change involves the implementing multiple components, the activities must be sequenced to avoid any scope for error. You can achieve this by creating and organizing tasks.
• Verify if the deployed change works smoothly for stakeholders and end-users.

At any time during deployment, the change team must be prepared to back out of the with minimal or no interference in the production environment in the event of major problems.

Details

The Details sub-tab in release stage displays the following sections that analyzes the change:

• Properties - Displays any additional field configured with release stage to collect information about the release process. Depending on your change role and permissions, you can spot-edit the additional fields.
• Release Issues - Records the issues faced during or after releasing the change. You can upload the issues list as attachments.

You can also add any details related to the release stage as Description. 

Schedule Change Release

Schedule the time to release the change and track service downtimes that were scheduled while planning the change.

In the Schedule sub-tab, click Edit beside Release Schedule to enter the schedule details. You can also click  beside a field to update it.

The scheduled times set in the planning stage will be reflected in the release stage. You cannot update scheduled times in the release stage. 

You can edit or update the downtime details.

1. If the actual time is different from the planned time, click  > Edit to add the actual start and end time manually.
2. If the downtime was executed as planned, select the downtime and click Update Actual Downtime. The scheduled time will be updated as the actual time.

Add Tasks

You can add and manage tasks to break down the work involved in the release stage.

In the Tasks sub-tab,

• Click  to add a task. You can also quick add tasks by clicking .
• To add tasks from existing change task templates, click .
• Click Organize to set the order in which tasks must be executed.
• Click Dependencies to set parent-child relationship between tasks.
• Click  to edit, delete, or close a task. You can also select multiple tasks and click  on the toolbar to close or delete tasks in bulk.
• Select multiple tasks and use the toolbar buttons to pick up, assign or trigger tasks.

Click on a task name to open the task details page. You can view the comprehensive details of the task, spot-edit the task fields, add comments or work logs, and track history from the task details page.

You can also manage tasks from the Actions menu on the toolbar or from the Tasks tab on the left pane. Learn more.

Add Notes

Technicians can add notes add important information relevant to releasing the change and tag users to notify them. 

In the Notes sub-tab, 

• Click Add Notes. Add the notes details and enter @ to tag users.
• Click Edit on a note to modify the note content. You can only edit the notes added by you.
• Click Delete on a note to remove the note.
• Click  or  beside Add Notes option to expand or collapse all notes.
• Click  to sort the order in which the notes are displayed.

You can also add notes from the Actions menu on the toolbar or from the Notes tab on the left pane. Learn more.

Approvals

Track the approval levels associated with the release stage via workflow. Depending on your permissions, you can perform approval actions on the change.

In the Approvals sub-tab,

• Click Add Approvals to configure additional approvals in the approval levels added from workflow.
• Select approvals and click Send for Approval to trigger approval reminder to the approvers via email.
• If you are an approver, you can take approval actions in the approval level table.
• Hover over an approval and click  to remove the approval.

From the Level Actions drop-down, you can approve, reject, edit or delete approval levels based on your permissions.

Associations 

Associate the release request used to manage the change deployment. 

Currently, you can associate only one release request with the change request. 

Create and Associate Release Request: You can create a release request with the change details and associate it with the change request.

1. Go to Associations sub-tab in the release stage.
2. Select Create New Release.
3. Choose how to import the change data into the release request by selecting one of the following options:
   • Overwrite all existing field values: Update all release request field values with the change values. 
   • Overwrite only empty field values: Retain the release template values and update only empty fields with the change values.
   • Do not overwrite: Retain only value set in the release template values and do not copy any change value to the release request.
4. Click Apply.

 Downtime schedule in the change will be copied to release only if the release request has not crossed Planning stage. 

Associate Existing Release Request: You can associate open release requests already created under Releases module.

1. Click Associate Release.
2. In the slider window, select the release request to associate with the change.
3. Click Associate.

You can also associate projects to a change from the Actions menu.

To remove an associated releases, select the release request and click Dissociate.

Status Comments

View the status transitions of the change in the release stage, along with the comments added during transitions.